June 2024 recap

Series

• The Gentlemen - FINISHED - My girlfriend recommended this to me. When I saw it was directed by Guy Ritchie I knew I was on board. It’s an entertaining show with a good premise.
• Eric - FINISHED - About a couple that loses their child. The main focus is on the father (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) who has some mental health issues. It’s a mini-series and very well put together.
• Sherlock - ONGOING - This is a rewatch for me. After watching Eric, we got talking about Benedict Cumberbatch and I was utterly amazed she hadn’t seen Sherlock yet. So, that had to happen.

Movies

• Sheryl - A documentary about Sheryl Crow. I was looking for something to watch, and this was recommended through a podcast I listen to. It sheds some light on the history of Sheryl and why she became an icon for so many people.

Youtube

• Speedrunning in Conquest of the Longbow - I never heard of speedrunning in Adventure Games before watching this video. It’s amazing, the lengths people go through to achieve these times and the amount of work and effort they put into it. It’s fascinating. Not my cup of tea, mind; but I’m honestly impressed by anyone who puts great effort into anything.

Books

• The Go Programming Language - FINISHED - A book on loan by a friend. I’m starting a new job soon and Go is the programming language of choice, so any leg up I can get before starting is nice.
• Before They Are Hanged - FINISHED - The second book in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy. I greatly enjoyed the first book and really like this one as well. Looking forward to where the series is going to go!
• Code Rood - FINISHED - The title translates to Code Red. It’s a non-fiction book in Dutch that goes through some recurring world-changing events, such as solar storms, volcanic eruptions, pandemics and meteorite impacts. Especially solar storms is a personal worry of mine…
• Last Argument of Kings - READING - The third book in the above-mentioned trilogy. I read quite a bit in the early hours at GMM (A Belgian Metal music festival).
• Waarom niemand kwantum begrijpt - READING - Another Dutch book I picked up at (like Code Rood) at the Nerdland festival. This one explains the history of quantum physics, starting from the 17th century and working its way up to the current theories. For the very first time, I believe I have somewhat of a basic graps on quantum mechanics. Very interested in finishing this one shortly!

Games

• Dave the Diver - FINISHED - A game that should be a chill pick up and play game. For some reason I couldn’t get myself to do any other real life tasks before finishing the whole thing. It’s not a high-flying narrative game, but the gameplay is fenomenal. Every day you set out to catch fish, to then sell in your restaurant. And the game just absolutely delivers by blending several different genres. Every other day some sort of event happens and everytime a new polished minigame appears that usually feels easy enough but still okay to get a dopamine fix and play on.
• Dexter Stardust - FINISHED - This got recommended to me by a friend of mine. The puzzles weren’t that hard and the gameplay was a bit too tongue-in-cheek at times for me (the references to Monkey Island were many). I liked it and finished it, and clearly a lot of love was put into the game. But in the end, I think I’d pass for a possible sequel.

Music

• GMM - Four days of Metal music, hell yeah! Personal favourites of mine included Brutus, TOOL and Atreyu. Limp Bizkit was okay, but they just surfed on that nostalgia wave and stretched out 5 songs to last an hour. Not saying it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t special.
• Nell’ ora blu by Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats has been playing in the background for most of my reading sessions. Really enjoyable album and excited to see them live!

Private life

I moved out of my house. New house isn’t ready yet, so I’m currently in-between houses. I’m hoping the new house will be done by August, so I can do a proper move-in before leaving on holiday for Canada in September. My sports habits have taken a bit of a tumble during this period. I’m hoping to start things back up in the coming weeks. I’ve been going 1-2 times a week for the past month, hoping to ramp this back up to 4-5 times during the coming weeks. I also started my career as a freelance developer. I am the proud owner and single employee of Pensive Ibex. It’s been hectic the past month, but I hope things will settle down somewhat in the coming weeks. Though, I still have to paint the new house before moving in. So that will take some doing as well.